“Thank you”
I know it wasn’t my fault
if you grabbed me by the neck,
I know it wasn’t my fault
if you slapped my right cheek,
I know it wasn’t my fault
if you pushed me to the floor
I know it wasn’t my fault
if my collar bone was nearly broken.
Even when you locked me in our house I was sure that this was not the end.
In those moment I learned how huge my fears are,
and how they are sometimes strongly connected to love.
It’s strange, don’t you think?
After that I was not able to love anymore.
But that was not my nature,
because I’m made of love, light and darkness.
Now, more than four years and a half later
I want to say thank you for what you’ve done,
because leaving you gave me the power to be stronger.

Marta Lodola, part of ARISE, 2017

Highlights are present along our path in a way or another, and the resulting seizure of power on our being can shape in a positive or negative way our life. Often we found ourselves subject to be influenced by relationships, education, cultural dynamics but also by all the experiences we interface with during our existence. Specific external factors reflect within our inner reality, and for this reason we might get the chance to overcome our fear and discover a new reality free from obligations.
The act of sewing traditionally belongs to my life as my mother and my grandmother taught me how to sew buttons when i was a child. I used to fill up a piece of fabric then remove everything and start over again, choosing every day different and funny buttons. I’ve sewn the same piece of fabric over and over, a pocket made of red velvet. Growing up i’ve learned different sewing techniques, finding connections and similarities with painting and artistic creations in general. I keep with me this gesture as a unique sign of my persona and my femininity.
At some point, the joy and the naivety of being a child has been interrupted by a tragic event: a former partner has forced himself on me pushing me to find the strenght and the lucidity to understand what was happenig and finally leave him. In that moment I think I’ve lost, at least in part, the innocence in me that I might have never found again.
Luckily it was not as i thought, and after time I’ve understood the enormous pain i was carrying inside and I’ve decided to look for that child again and keep her with me. My artistic research has provided the lucidity to see things for what they are, detaching me and giving a wider vision.
I’ve found love for myself and for others only by leaving behind my old self made of forced social dynamics and conjectures as a woman. I’ve discovered gratitude for a life of complete faith. The negative experience turned into an unmistakable sign of my true self.
I’ve found myself after recognising and accepting my entirety, appreciating every moment that I’ve lived. Going through this abyss within me I’ve found again my real self.
The performace evokes those moments, positive and negative, whereby I confronted myself with diverse power dynamics in referral to my persona by means of the performative practice.
My true self emerges to experience the present moment, letting go what lies within myself. The rebirth is neverending, new consciousness arises overcoming fear.
During the action I gradually compose the sentence “Through my fears I’ve found myself”, where the writing process consists of two different faces, rationality and instinct. The balance between these two aspects of every individual is the subtle limit where I place the nature of my action. My aim to create meaning gets mixed with a more meditative and chatartic aspect.
Different levels of experience reflect upon the research of our true identity mixing at once the body language and the verbal one. Nothing is separate, everything is connected.

“Being-in-this-world has always dispersed or even split itself up into definitive ways of Being-in. The multiplicity of these is indicated by the following examples: having to do with something, producing something, attending to do something and looking after it, making use of something, giving something up and letting go, undertaking, accomplishing, evincing, interrogating, considering, discussing, determining… All these kind ways of Being-in have concern as their kind of Being”

M.Heidegger, Sein und Zeit, 1929

Being-in-this-world is to live the world. As a simple fact, we exist, we live in space where we are present. The body is our home and our being creates our existence.

We live our home, we take care of it, we develop relationships within our space defining our whole existence. At the same time we can live also places which are not specifically described as home. These places can become the perfect example of “feeling at home”. They become a clear manifestation of spaces that belong to us and are still “ours”.

During the performance we would like to explore the duplicity of living yourself and the world: we live places that are our by necessity or relationships. We investigate the state of living inside and outside.

We live because we are, we relate to ourselves within space and time and we live any places considered “ours”. We inhabit ourselves and we relate to the places life put on our path. We inhabit temporarily physical places coming to life thanks to our actions and our presence.
Duality lies within each one of us, it shapes the action of two individuals connected and separated at the same time. Each one of us will find its path in the world. The confrontation with the “Other” and the role exchange will situate inversely two parts of the Self.

It is the perfect deal among individuals who are similar and different at the same time, observing each other from the inside to eradicate the discrepancy that separates them. Forming one body we become a new figure, we become an individual who is different from the single human being. The cohesion is unearth, the cohesion is a gaze toward the inner part of someone different, who seemed at first extraneous in our eyes.

The dividing line between us is made precarious by our stability. In frontal, and unbalanced position in comparison to the single centers, we unite ourselves through the support of the third eye on our forehead. We become one body, our togetherness make possible a new balance.

The formed body is unique, single and double at the same time. The hands sideways support a precarious structure acting as parameter for our stability. The necessary resistance, to maintain this form, works as mechanism destroying the limit that separates us. The fusion happens through the gaze, creating a sutle game among the eyes, so close to each other and capable to see beyond our perception.

Who are we, when we subject ourself to a digital matrix of rules and restrictions?
What remains of us once we are forced to eliminate our deviations, absurdities, and obscenities, to censor all the uneven corners of our being? We reveal, verbalize, and display. Taking a new standardized identity, we confess strictly along the guidelines.

In the last 10 years a new public sphere has emerged, and it’s a privately owned one. Those who wish to participate, must follow and respect its restrictions. Most of us accept this sacrifice so gracefully, so willingly; as if it’s the natural price we must pay for obtaining connectedness in an evermore immaterial reality.
Under the promise “to build a more open and connected world” lies the death of individuality and the creation of a single absolute truth.

We invite you for a shared reflection on the issues of power, identity, confession, and truth in the age of the digital social network.
Our performance will take place inside the environment we wish to examine, and will be subjected to the same restrictions and guidelines we wish to challenge.

Gender-based violence is something inherent in our social sphere. The government provisions seem not able to embank the problem and offer an effective aid.
Since the beginning of the year 80 women died in Italy because of feminicide. A woman dies every two days and, many women suffer constantly from violence without knowing how to ask for help, or to whom.
There are no effective punishments for the aggressors and the murderes remaining un-imprisoned even after the reports, being a constant threat for every woman asking for help.
The laws don’t guarantee a real protection, and in situations of home violence there are often dynamic for which is difficult to find a way out from this condition. The report would be only another way to jeopardize your own life.
I remember their lives, their light and their vitality, interrupted by murderous hands. My body is a simple medium, annulled by their presence.

The female body is connected to its standard representation of mere tool proving its own presence and its own identity. The female body has always been persecuted and identified as sexual body connected to aesthetic pleasure. Historically the female role has been subjected to the highest violence discriminations precisely because it is the body of sin, evil and perdition. The broken and shadowed body.
How can the enslaved body identify its own identity and value? What is the process in which we judge the body? In which way our judgement is responsible for the woman condition through history?
The judged female body becomes the starting point to recreate an interaction within reality, although the body as symbol of rejection and power over the individual is actually the opposite. It creates a bridge between the worlds and establish mutual trust among identities communicating through this body.

It is time to read, understand, and take a stand.
Let’s focus on the sense of the words and compare it with the reality.
A careful reading of Italian Constitution articles, especially in this historical and political moment, reveals a complete incongruity observing what is actually happening. The events of the Italian chronicles are the perfect example as this text, that should be the clear model of Italian citizens rights and duties, is in reality a realized paradox.
On paper individual freedom is inviolable. Citizens rights are equal in front of the law, and there are no distinctions of sex, race, religion and political views. We know that these distinctions and inequalities are real and they become visible more and more. I see my country in extreme danger, a marvelous place, crib of the art strongly defaced by the affairs and by the political business. I look at my beloved earth and I am sad.
In my left hand I will hold a candle and using my right hand I will take, one after another, the articles printed on every single sheet. Every article gets burnt before its reading so the fire sets the time and dangerously challenge to read more and more.
Reading every article implicates two factors: the risk to suffer a physical damage and at the same time the risk of a limited comprehension of the words during theirs reading.
Risking to be misunderstood or risking to suffer a physical pain due to knowledge, is a compromise that leads to take a stand.
It is an invitation to Reaction.
Time to read is now!

The feminine body has always been the biggest proponent and inspiration for beauty and sin, finding itself in the middle of the paradox generated by our intrinsic imperfection: the general parameters of the ideal body – imposed model of what sexual attractive should be – doesn’t correspond of what actually is in nature. A woman naked body is animalistic, sensual, powerful and it comes in all shapes and sizes.

In her performance Marta Lodola progressively wraps her own body with red wool and daily use objects, transforming it from its original identity and loading it with energetic power and mystical meaning. The color symbol of the paradox: red – sensuality and danger.
In geo chromotherapy the red color is known for its gynecological and sexual functions, and more generally it is known for its energetic and initiating virtues, stimulation of blood circulation, in religious rituals and functions it keeps bad energies away and of course it is the color symbolizing eros and passion. The red wool is a material that has strong connection with magic and the feminine reproductive system. With this action the red wool becomes like a second skin, an elevating bridge to a whole new level of presence and conscience.

In Italy women’s image has undergone a dramatic change over the past twenty years, which has partly been induced by television, media and sexual scandals involving political leaders. As a result, Italian women have soon been exposed to the risk of a generalisation that alienates them.
I talk about resistance as it entails an actual limitation of women’s involvement in this country. This also generates a number of problems regarding women’s social dimension and their ongoing struggle to achieve those unrealistic images so appealing to the contemporary taste.

MY BODY IS YOUR BODY

2011

Videoperformance_Marta Lodola

Video footage from_Bombardamenti Usa

Camera_Valerio Ambiveri

My body is your body, it’s everyone’s. Let ourselves become more than witnesses for once. Let’s put ourselves in the shoes of those people being targeted or in the shoes of that soldier that’s dropping bombs. What will you be? A victim or a murderer?